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Topic: New face (Read 21588 times)

Callista looked towards the mighty tree "the tree's of old, wood-kin is it just you who have awoken this day, or have more woken with you?" Callista got to her feet and walked over to the roots of the tree she was tiny compared to the tree "i beg of you tell me" Callista bowed deeply to the tree and again spoke "you may of known my father kelsta?" asked Callista with pride

Danu surpressed a laugh. It all looked so interesting from her vantage in the trees, her wings folded tightly to her back. Maybe she should go and join them? She jumps down, breaking her fall with her bird like wings, and saunterd over to them, sabsently flicking her hair over her shoulder. "Now, now. What is going on here? Such a commotion."

The wood-kin said in a voice as deep as the crash of the ocean surf. He moved his large eyes slowly from the elf who spoke to him, to the new arrival having recently decended from the heavens above.

There are...Haar-Hroom...no others...here...

The wood-kin grew silent and still, only the wind, and a lone halfling moving through his branches. He let his mind roll backwards, remembering the passage of seasons, the cold, the warmth, the rain and the dry. Was there a Kelsta in his memory. He recalled a face, elven...a voice strong and wise. A babe in his arms...his daughter...or was it another memory? There were so many.

Danu wasn't sure she liked having an eye nearly the size of her own head upon her, but then again, she didn't much like having eyes upon her at all. Not many folk took well to a half demon, her recent experience of being chased through a town and it's sewers by a demon hunter and his dragon friend was proof of that. But the Wood-kin's eyes had a certain calmness to them, and an ancient knowledge which made her think that maybe this creature had lived longer than even she. She stood behind the young elf, hpoing that the elf wouldn't take an agressive stance towards her. She was interested in the scene unfolding before her, but her real reason for staying was that she recognised the name, Kelsta, from a time long ago, when no part of her was human. A time which she could hardly remember, and a time she needed to find out about.

"My father he was.. once a demon slayer, he worked for the wood elf king Sherva, before he relised he was working under false pretences, he had befriended a male demon, but i can not remeber what he had said his name to be, the male demon had a daughter, his wife having died giving birth to the babe, i also was just a babe, my father had orders to burn down this entire forest with hords of demons living here, he had called upon one of the mighty wood-kin to look after me while we recked havoc on the wood-elf's kingdom only to find that he was an imposter that he had killed the real wood-elf king and had placed himself in the throne, my father had revealed this secret and for that he was killed in battle, he left me with the tree-kin, but it could not keep a look out for me, he had given me to a woman who had been searching for her lost child, the wood-kin had told the woman to look after me for i was going to help to avenge my father, and that i will remeber what i need to do when the time has come and the time is now, i am to meet a half-demon and also meet the wood-kin which had looked after me, while my father was killed, i just thought that, that wood-kin, was you but i apoligise if i was mistaken! and you demon there is no need to stay begind me, i am no threat to you" Callista waited for an answer from either the demon or the wood-kin.

The wood-kin brooded over this avalanche of information. He remembered the buring, the unclean spirits that had infested the forest. It was good that the sharp blades of man and elf found productive use in the felling of the unclean ones. The forest had burned, the sky rained ash.

He had come the long trek from Deepening Gloom and had surveyed the ruin of the old forest. He had labored for many years, planting acorns and seeds, replanting the forest that had burned. The soil was dark, deep, and rich, the plants soon were raising verdant limbs to the heavens. He remembered standing in one place for days, swaying with the breeze, and the remembered songs of that which was lost.

He remembered the infant, a small mewling thing still in the swaddling blanket. Kelsta...he remembered. The wood-kin could not provide for an elven babe, he could provide water, deep soil, and sunshine, but not the milk the babe needed. The widow of the croft had taken her and raised her, having lost her own child to the unknown. It was not long after that exchange that he had started entering the deep slumber.

I remember...

He stumbled with the quickling tongue, the disjointed words and hard sounds. The language of the wood-kin was a constant sound, a lullaby of soft creakings and groans, the rustle of leaves, and the flex of woodgrain.

The-Hroom...widow of the Kaar-croft...raising you...before the Hroom...deep sleeping. Kel-Hroom-sta was...good.

He turned his gaze from the elf he had carried many miles as a babe to look upon the features of the half-demon. There was a good number of creaks and pops as several branches curled inwards, others moving outward in a strange rippling.

I will...Hroom...tolerate no missss-Haar-chief...from you...

The wood-kin fixed Danu with his amber eyes, eyes that would consider the deeds of a demon as simple mischief.

Callista sighed a deep relieving sigh, but where did the half-breed and the halfling come into it she thought as she looked around trying to pinpoint the other two, Callista also looked up at the demon "please tell me your name and why do you come here today?" Callista awaited the demons reply

OOC: Danu isn't going to be on very much so if this countinues on and see becomes a big part of this, then we will have to just go around her absences.

The girl woke up and stretched it had been a long jouney.She stood and looked to see the things that were going on around her. She seemed confused and obviously could not speak. She seemed stressed at the fact that there were others there speaking to her yet she had no way of communicating. She brought her knees to her chest sitting there looking at those around her scared she directed her eyes to her feet, still not speaking.

Callista looked with surprise at the newcomer, or even the one who had been there before all of them, Callista walked slowly almost cautiosly towards her "hello," she said in a hearty voice almost trusting her instintcs "I am Callista, i was just wondering how on earth did you just sleep through that racket?" Callista awaited an answer

Now the danger was over, the Halfling, clinging amongst the wood-kins branches, grinned. "Well, Isn't this just grand! It's like some kind of reunion!" The halfling Grinned widely at the ambered orbs before him, then scrambled between branches of the tree-man, almost losing his grip and falling, several times, but finally making his way to sit atop what he imagined to be the big creatures head. He peered down at the group, but it seemed he was already beginning to lose interest in them - The Halfling didnt have the largest of attention-spans, obviously. "Well, I'm Hamold Grandt, Son of Thimbus Grandt, at any rate. And who are you?" He knocked on the wood below him to indicate he was talking to the woodkin.

Redwick had been temporary stunned by first seeing a talking tree and then a person with wings coming down from the sky. But now he had regained his ability to speak again.

"I'm Redwick Undersoor, half-dwarf explorer an' beer-drinker. I was just going trough these fields lookin' for any cities or villages nearby, 'cause I haven't been in civilized land for quite some time now."

Logged

"Some people says that a dwarf never loses his way. The truth is that they never lose their map."Redwick Undersoor

"It's a pleasure to meet you mr undersoor, i wish to thankyou for your help back there, i couldn't of done it without you or the wood-kin! oh by the way what is your name wood-kin?"she asked turning her gaze slightly towards the wood-kin.

The wood-kin lifted the halfing off of the top of his head with several smaller branches, and deposited him on the ground next to the others who had woken him.

Mr. Haar-Undersoooor...you are well....Hem...away from civilisation...Well away from towns, and...hem...axes.

The wood-kin was surprised that anyone knew the name of his kind from old. Most men of the age knew his kind as ent, treesheperd, treekin. Close, but none correct. The question of his name gave the wood-kin pause, his name had not been asked for an age. Even Kelsta never inquired to his name.

My name is...Haar-Hroom...Still Watcher...Hem...of Still Water. Among my own kind...Hem...I was simply...Hem...Eldest.

The wood-kin of Deepening Gloom did call him oldest, but that was before he left their company, disliking the dark cast of their faces, and the malice that seeped from their roots, and fell from their crowns. He longed for the bright and clean forests, not the dark ones, comsumed with their own anger and hate. The gods would come down from the mountains one day and would dance for the trees again, but in time, long long time.

"then i shall call you watcher if that is ok with you?" Callista once again went into a low bow, and once again straightened up, she turned to the halfling "and you halfling, what be your name?" she stared into the eyes of the halfling, awaiting his answer, she had not meet to many of his kind lately, most halflings would not leave there towns, they were mostly shy folk but this one he seemed more curious than the rest, this was odd company for all i do believe she thought to herself, "there is a halfling, a wood-kin (tree of old), a half-breed, a half demon, and a man who seems to perfer to be out of this all, why do you just stand and watch man?" Callista asked looking towards the dark shape between the trees. "come forth and give us your name"

"Why, Hamold, of course!" Boasted the halfling, as though it were a badge of pride. He then shifted a hand forth to prod the woman in the belly, "Say... Weren't you a fish a moment ago?" At the mention of another man in the shadows, the halfling shifted his glance to peer within the darkness to discern the man standing in there. Hmph, of all his weeks in this forested place, he had met about three people. Now he had all these others!

Callista let out a slight humorus laugh "yes, i was but for some reason i do not know why i did turn into what you would call a 'fish'" her smile stayed with her as she thought back to her mother and father, could her mother have been a mermaid was it possible? Callista didn't know her mother for she had died giving birth to her, Callista's smile faded as she thought of her last moments with her father before he sent her away, she again looked in the direction of the trees where the man still stood quite still, forming into the darkness of the forest "wood-kin! can you tell me who killed my father? do you know? if you do i beg of you to tell me"

Callista also looked at the lake "i believe it was a Forgat, i believe, i do not know wether i have pronounced it right but i think it is" callista mumbled on "a water demon, which protects the lake, from trespasser's, these last few years it has become more dangerous and even maybe hostile to anyone in the lake, it has been killing at will, well it was anyway" went Callista, her eye's still transfixed on the spot where it still seemed a tiny bit red from the blood, Callista picked up her water bottle and took a huge gulp, she then offered it to Redwick, "you look thirsty" her eye's didn't move to look at him but stayed in the place where the water demon had vanished to the darkness of the bottom of the lake,

I am sorry...Hem...I do not know how...Haar...youre father perished...

Watcher said. It was painful, but true. He took the young Callista into his temporary care and took her to the widow of the crift when it came to him that Kelsta was slain. The world of the quick was frenzied and often blinded by terrible emotion, certainly alien to the wood-kin who lived through the centuries as ageless as the elves who came after them.

Kelsta had gone to a distant land to do battle with the demons and their puppets, well away from the boughs of the Deepening Gloom, and the croft widow who would eventually raise Callista as her own. Watcher remembered that before that long slumber he had called her Moonshade. Called her that for reasons that were lost with antiquity.

The wood-kin live in the present, and have long memories, but they are often fractured, and muddled with time, and the inconstant attention of the truely immortal. A wood-kin could pause for a rest, and awaken to discover a decade had passed while they rested, others could lapse into the deep sleep for three, or four centuries, only to awaken as if nothing had happened.

Moonshade I once called you...

Watchers voice became steadily smoother as he reaccustomed himself to speaking in the human tongue.

Callista looked to the floor "moonshade" she repeated, the name rang in her head as if it had just come out of the air and rang a huge bell in Callista's head "moonshade" she said again, her voice soft, the wind ruffled through her hair, "i must find him" Callista looked up, her eye's gleaming with tears, one rolled down her cheek, and landed on her lips, making them glisten in the setting sun "i have to find him watcher, i have to ask him why he did it, was it an order, or maybe he just done it for fun" callista said almost to herself, no matter what he did it for she was going to make him pay for what he did to her, for what he did to her father, again a tear rolled down her cheek

"it's an elven, liquire it will keep you from being thirsty for at least a couple of days" callista said without thinking, she didn't turn her head to look at him but said while her eyes where fixed on alec's,